It sounds exciting to place the child at the center. It seems to give us a feeling that we are doing everything necessary to make the child feel important. It makes him feel good to know how we feel.

Indeed, don't we really want to enhance our children's self-image and responsibility? Won't it help them feel a sense of worth and responsibility, which will translate into a greater ability to able to solve their own problems and to mature more rapidly? The basic concept does seem make a lot of sense.

However, it is also important to consider the fact that children really do not have as much basic life information as adults. Children who make decisions without sufficient adult guidance will make mistakes.

Fine, you say. You are willing to let children make mistakes. You believe that there's no better way for the child to learn.

However, this centrality can be dangerous in other ways. If the child himself is an authority figure then he has less reason to look up to others. He has more difficulty learning the real concept of authority. As he gets older he becomes more confused. Did he lose his authority by growing up? Did the situation change because he now belongs to an older generation?

How will that child learn the concept of authority? What are his guidelines, responsibilities, and rights?

In order to develop properly, a child does indeed require authority figures, including a father, mother, teacher, and Rabbi. He must know his place. He requires discipline in order accomplish the things that are appropriate for his position in life. He needs some limited authority, so that he can respect those who have greater authority than he has.

After hundreds of years in slavery, the Israelites in the desert had to re-learn the basics of life. From the outset, they were told to appoint leaders who would have certain authority over thousands of people, hundreds, and tens of people. Each leader had a different level of authority, and each one had to appeal to a higher authority when there was a problem. The highest level authorities went to Moses, who would then ask G-d Himself if there was an issue that needed clarification. Later clarifications in the Torah related to other requirements for authority figures.

This line of lower-level authority to higher-level authority is not just entrenched in the Bible - it is a necessary part of other areas of life as well.

If we place the child in the center, then we have removed all of Jewish history, and much of the history of mankind. We may then be creating a significant void as this child grows up.

Thus, instead of placing the child in the center, we have removed his historical purpose.

Is this what we want to accomplish?

And will we, as teachers, be able to teach a child when he is the center of the classroom?